The Chittapur constituency, which comes under the Kalaburagi district and is a segment of the Gulbarga Lok Sabha seat, is witnessing Subhash Chandra Rathore from the Janata Dal (Secular) contest against Priyank Kharge from the Indian National Congress (INC), Manikanta Rathod from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Jagdish S Sagar of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
The Chittapur constituency is reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC).
In 2018, Priyank Kharge, who is AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge’s son, won the seat by defeating Valmik Naik of the BJP with a margin of 4393 votes.
Priyank Kharge won 69,700 votes while Naik managed to secure 65,307 votes.
Mallikarjun Kharge was elected to the Karnataka assembly nine successive times, between 1972 and 2008. He won eight times from the Gurmitkal constitutency, when it was reserved for Scheduled Castes, and once from Chittapur.
Having served two terms as Chittapur MLA in the last 10 years, Priyank is eyeing a third term in the Congress stronghold. He is presently the head of the communication and social media wing of the KPCC. The BJP is seeking to make inroads in Chittapur this time based on caste calculations.
On May 3, the Election Commission issued a show-cause notice to Priyank for alleged violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) for his “nalayak” remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Responding to the EC’s notice, Priyank, said that he has not violated the MCC and that he only referred to PM Modi’s “empty” rhetoric for the Banjara community at an election rally as “nalayak (inept).”
Recently, the Congress, referring to an audio clip, claimed that BJP candidate Rathod had used abusive language for Mallikarjun Kharge, and was talking about killing him and his family. Rathod, faces around 40 criminal cases in several districts of Karnataka including Kalaburagi. Charges against Rathod include murder, illegal transportation of Anna Bhagya rice, smuggling drugs and narcotics, criminal intimidation and illegal possession of fire arms among other things.
Rathod has been convicted in three cases, and served a year in prison for one of the cases.
In November last year, Rathod was arrested for expressing his readiness to shoot Priyank. However, he was later released on bail.
Out of 224 seats in the Karnataka Assembly, the winning party must have at least 113 seats to form the government in Karnataka.
Polling to elect the 16th Karnataka Legislative Assembly began on Wednesday morning at 7 am amid tight security arrangements. Voting will continue till 6 pm and 20.99% voter turnout was recorded at 11 am in the southern state, informed the Election Commission.
The results for the high-stake polls will be declared on May 13.
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